Forever Beloved
by S0n 0f J3r1ch0
Summary: The day of the wedding between Phoebe and Coop, a special guest shows up at the church: Cole, straight from the limbo where he's been imprisoned.
_**Forever Beloved**_

It keeps hurting, and I know this pain will last forever.  
It keeps burning, and I know this fire will never die out.

Wedding march is ringing everywhere. Ethereal music, passing through every dimensions, is hammering my brain. I see you coming in, your father by your side.

Don't know what made me show up here, today. Standing between all this people, in their regal suits and packed with their cheering smiles, attending to a vision which looks way more like a nightmare. Maybe it's because my nature still forces me to cause suffering, and this time I decided to do it on myself. Or maybe because I just wanted to see you one last time with a grind on your lips, hoping in vain that you would feel my presence. But no one is seeing me, nobody knows I'm here, not even you.

How can you not sense my spirit?

So I'm staying here, out of your way, invisible to everyone, floating in my eternal damnation. Trapped in this abyss of nothing, surrounded by indifference, apathy and loneliness. Cursed to live something that's not even a life anymore, far away from any human feeling. And yet...

I can't stand this. I can't let you go. Why would I? Why, seeing you in front of the altar, so unbelievably beautiful in your white dress, shouldn't I be devoured by regrets? Why, seeing you next to man who's not me, shouldn't I burst into anger and jealousy? You're the last bond I got with this world. And the only things that walk by me, through the haze wrapping me night and day, are the still bright memories of us, of what we used to be, of what we could have been.

I still love you, Phoebe. I know I'm loving you, even though they tried to make me forget how to do it. I love you because you're special, and not only because you're a witch and you have powers, but because you're... just you. Because a demon got to sense feelings that he would never even got to know, thanks to you. A demon feeds with pain, lies, violence. But even the part of me that should have hated you, actually reached to do anything for you. A demon lives in the fire. But here, the only flame that's burning inside me is yours.  
Hotter than Hell.

Now I'm seeing while you take that man's hands and pledge him your love, and you don't realize that it's just an illusion. Wonderful, maybe, but yet still an illusion. It wasn't your choice to pick up that Cupid. They made you do it. By the Elders, by Cupid himself, by the ones who pulled the strings. By the ones who never want us to be together and happy. I heard you say that you'd never known real love until you met Cupid... but I know it's not like this. And in the bottom of your soul, you know that too.

We used to have the world at our feet.

No one's ever understood what was between us, not even your sisters. With their men, a Whitelighter and a mortal... all so regular. They thought those were "forbidden loves", but they really didn't know what they were talking about. Ours was a true forbidden love: a witch and a demon... we were against all the rules. And probably that's why our love was the most intense. A love that will never have equal, stronger than us, than the world, than Magic, than everything. A love destined to stay unaltered, in eternity.

\- ... speak now of forever hold his peace! -

Me. I'd stop this marriage, and you'd want that too, if you only knew I'm here. I wish… but I won't. At the end of the day, that's not really why I'm here. Now I understand it: I had a mission, and apparently, today I accomplished it. I fought so long, to make you not losing your faith in love, and now that you've found it again... I will not object.

Cause your happiness has always been at the first place for me, and if this is how is meant to be, I will never ruin it anymore. You can pretend I resign myself and forget you, no, I can't do this. But I can at least try to make up the sufferings you had to face because of my faults. Who's ever said that a creature, once voted to evil, can't do a good deed after all, especially if it's to protect the woman he loves?

It's all over now. The ceremony has come to an end: you kiss the man you just married, your sisters weep tears of joy. You're walking the central isle, hand in hand with your new husband, and you pass beside me. My eyes meet yours, but you don't realize it.

 _Stop, please._

But your steps are not slowing down. You proceed straight towards the front door, and I start to feel you so much distant. Shining like a diamond, graceful and harmonious like an angel, you're running away from me.

You step out the doorway, and lift up flying toward the sunrise of a new day, where I'll have to live and be tortured by the idea... that you'll never be mine again.

And I'll have nothing left to do but stand here, confined in this boundless prison with no bars, halfway between Heaven and Hell, watching you from afar.

From too far.

 _I will return._

 _Forever yours,_

 ** _Cole Turner_**


End file.
